The Birth Story

Jamie pointed out to me that I hadn't ever told the birth story from my point of view.

When I left off with the contraction reports, I'd been having contractions all night on Sunday the 9th and then they spaced out on Monday the 10th. Sure enough, they ramped up again that night. Strong, painful contractions every 12 minutes. They were worse and closer together when I was lying down, so I tried to sleep sitting up on the couch. El Grande decided he was going to keep me company by bringing his pillow and a blanket and sleeping on the living room floor. Nice thought, but it was actually worse than having him asleep in our bed, since I needed to make some noise to get through the contractions, but I didn't want to wake him up. OK, so after a few hours I did want to wake him up, but I just felt annoyed and inhibited that he was there. I got into a warm bath to see if that would make the contractions space out or relieve the pain enough that I could get some sleep, but no dice. I listened to the hypnoosis CDs, and that actually seemed to make the pain of the contractions worse (more about that later in the "What I Learned" post). For an hour or so I was in our bedroom working through the contractions there.

The next morning the contractions were still 12 minutes apart, and I was in a bad emotional state. I was weeping, and praying for mercy, literally. I started praying "God help me" through each contraction but soon it switched to the kyrie ("Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy."). Then I started thinking about all the other women who'd ever gone through labor, and especially the ones who'd been in horrible situations. I started thinking about that 13-year-old girl in foster care in Florida who at one point was going to be forced to go through a pregnancy and birth she didn't want that could hurt her still-developing body. I started thinking about all the women who'd been raped in Rwanda who went through labor and childbirth with babies they didn't love. I started thinking about women who had been pregnant in concentration camps during the Holocaust who had been in labor and had been killed or their children killed with medical "experiments." I really was just crying for all women and for the world.

But, whenever El Chico was in the room (we hadn't made any arrangements at that point because I was convinced I was still hours if not days away from actually having the baby) I was able to leave the pain and concentrate on him enough to be reasonably pleasant. I didn't want to scare him.

Some time after 9 a.m. I paged the midwives. I told Karen that I'd been having strong contractions for two nights in a row and she either needed to meet me at the hospital and OK a c-section, or help me find a way to space out the contractions so I could get some sleep. She told me to take two bendryl and try to sleep for an hour or so. I don't know why I didn't think to tell her I'd been crying for several hours, since that was a big sign that I was further along that I thought I was. I think I just didn't want to get my hopes up that I'd have the baby soon and then have to go through another day or two or three.

I took the benadryl and slept for maybe 10 minutes, but then the contractions were too close together. I started timing them and it felt like they were every 6 minutes, but with two distinct peaks of pain. I told El Grande to page the midwives again, and this time he got Martine, who said she'd be there in an hour. An hour seemed fine, since my contractions were every 6 minutes. Until I realized, 10 minutes later, that they weren't double-peaked contractions every 6 minutes, but a contraction every 3 minutes.

At this point El Grande was noodling around on the internet. I kept trying to get his attention by grunting and waving my arms to indicate that maybe we should PICK UP THE DAMN TOYS THAT WERE ALL OVER THE LIVING ROOM FLOOR AND PUT DOWN A SHOWER CURTAIN SINCE MY CONTRACTIONS WERE FUCKING THREE MINUTES APART, but he was lost in the world of sports journalism and just kept looking up at me and telling me I was "doing really well, honey, and Martine will be here soon." I don't think the "3 minutes apart" information had clicked in his brain yet.

Thank God for my mom, who got El Chico to pick up all his toys and helped me spread out the shower curtain. As soon as we started opening up the curtain package, El Grande realized that maybe I was serious (it might also have been the low mooing noises I was making during contractions) and took El Chico into his room to read and draw. I think El Grande still thought we were hours and hours away from the birth.

Then I had to use the toilet. As soon as I got into the bathroom and sat down, I knew I wasn't coming out of that room until the baby was born. I just felt so much better in the enclosed space (remember I live in a NYC apartment, so the space in my bathroom is very enclosed), and sitting on the toilet helped to relieve some of the pressure I was feeling. When a contraction came (I was getting about 20-30 seconds off between contractions at this point) I'd brace on the towel bar and tub. My mom was standing in front of me, just being there and waiting to help if I needed anything. At one point I thought about how good it would feel to be able to pull down on something (remembering a comment on Jamie's site about women who bring their own ropes to hand from a hook in the ceiling and pull on during labor at a birthing center) and my mom just instinctively held out her hands for me to hold on to. She's short, though, so it wasn't exactly what I was looking for right then. But it was still so strange that she just knew what I needed. It was almost like the animal side of us were talking to each other, the same way my cat wakes me up a few seconds before the baby wakes up to nurse in the middle of the night.

I was doing a ton of low mooing at this point. We'd taken El Chico to a sibling prep class and one of the things they'd talked about was the noises women make during labor. They practiced mooing like cows, and the kids all thought this was hilarious. The idea was to let them know that it was part of labor, and not something to be afraid of. It worked. I couldn't hear him, but El Chico could hear me, and apparently every time I mooed, he'd yell "Click clack Moooooooo!" After the baby was born, El Chico asked me if I'd been saying "click clack moo" in the bathroom.

The contractions were so close together that I was just kind of riding the endorphins. I really had nothing much in my head except the hope that I was close to having the baby. I couldn't talk at all during contractions. All of a sudden, my body started pushing. I told my mom I was pushing, and she told me to try not to if I could help it, since we had no idea how far along I was and pushing too soon could bruise my cervix and make the real pushing take longer. As soon as she finished telling me to try not to push, my water broke. Everything stopped for a period of minutes. I was completely lucid, with no endorphin rush, and my mom and I were just chatting quietly, although I don't remember what about.

Then all of a sudden it was like I'd stepped off the platform and onto a train. My body just started pushing and the baby started coming down. "Whoa! The baby's coming down!" El Grande paged Martine again, since she was't there yet. My mom got the clean towels and washed her hands, and told me to scoot forward on the toilet so I was hanging off the front of it. Another contraction came and the head just sort of came out. (I remember thinking, "That doesn't feel like the head of a 10-pounder.") My mom caught it and wiped the mucus away from the baby's nose. She said he furrowed his brow and blinked and looked around like, "What's going on? I'm not so sure about all this." I tried to push the rest of him out, but was completely powerless to push. It was like being in an anxiety dream in which you have to run but can't move.

Just then Martine came in. (The parking garage on our block was full, so she'd had to circle and then steal someone's parking spot as they were trying to back in, then pump quarters into the meter. Then she couldn't get her cart down the hall because my neighbor had a big box in the hall.) My mom stepped aside and Martine bent down and grabbed the baby. Just then I had another contraction and the body shot out of me. Martine put him on my chest and I looked at him and realized he was just a tiny little squirt (comparatively speaking, of course). He was kind of mucousy, but no one suctioned him--he just kind of sneezed it out. Within about 30 seconds he started to root around and latched on. I was still on the toilet and the placenta wasn't even out yet!

El Grande cut the cord. We offered to let El Chico watch or cut, and to see the placenta, but he said he "had other things to do" and went down to meet his babysitter who was with his best friend that day. They went and played in the park for the rest of the afternoon. (I had no agenda for El Chico's participation, but I didn't want him to feel like things had gone on without him. So I thought it was important to offer him the chance to see as much as he wanted to, especially the cord and placenta stuff, since he'd been asking a lot of questions about them. If he'd wanted to see all that and not gotten the chance I would have felt bad. But once he saw the baby he was pretty much done with the whole experience, and the playground was calling.)

Martine got me to the bed (which she'd spread with chucks to make a little nest for us) and I nursed and we all admired El Pequeño and Martine checked me out (no tears!). Then she cleaned up, and teased me for doing it all on the toilet, since all she had to do was flush. She had a bunch of charting to do, and needed to stick around for a few hours to make sure we were stable, so she and my mom sat in the living room drinking coffee and talking. I could hear them laughing while El Grande and I dozed and snuggled El Pequeño.

It was a really good birth. I'm glad I did it with the people who were there. And I'm especially glad we planned a homebirth, because if we'd tried to get to the hospital by the time I figured out I was really in active labor I would have had the baby in a cab.

Comments

[Sarah]

What an amazing story! I'm so glad you wrote it all down...not just for me to read it (thank you) but for you and your family to have it later.

I really am in awe of you. That trip to NY needs to happen soooooon!

[Maura]

What a remarkable and beautiful birth story! I am in awe, both of your writing and of the enormous beauty of your birth experience, especially the section with your mom.

I actually just got back from the hospital, where my sister-in-law's labor is being induced. She's at 41.5 weeks, and her doctor decided not to let her go longer. Last night, they used a gel to try to soften her cervix. 12 hours later, nothing had really changed, except they gave her Ambien to help her sleep and it caused an allergic reaction. This morning, they started IV petocin, and as of now she's made little progress.

THe thing is, she's lying prone in bed. They haven't encouraged her to get up and walk or anything. She's just...still. And horizontal. And hooked up to two uncomfortable monitors that they won't let her take off, and an IV which is painful for her. THey told her she couldn't eat or drink last night at 9, so she's hungry and exhausted and uncomfortable and the contractions we can see on the monitor aren't even strong enough yet for her to feel them.

I've never given birth and I don't want to give assvice. But as I sat there looking at her, I had this incredibly powerful instinct that made me want to just kidnap her and bring her to a midwife who'd walk with her, rub her back and belly, put her in water, and walk with her some more.

When the nurse came in, I jokingly asked, "Is there anything you recommend, like having her get up and walk or taking a shower or anything?" And she said, "Oh, no. There's nothing to do now but wait. She should just lie down and stay comfortable." After that I just stayed quiet. I was veering dangerously close to assvice delivery, which would be the ugliest delivery yet, so I shut up.

My SIL's not a native English speaker and really trusts authority, so if this is what they tell her to do, that's what she'll do. That's her business, not mine.

But coming home and reading your story just makes me grieve a little for what my SIL is missing. Thanks so much for sharing.

[ann]

what an amazing birth story, moxie. congratulations. :)

[Kate W.]

You are my hero! I don't think I could have had such a sucessful labor at home or have the ability to write about it so well! Amazing!

[Cecily]

Wow! Thanks so much for sharing this with us. I've been dying to hear it from your perspective...

Sarah's right--we need to come to NYC very soon!!!

[WannaBeMom]

I think one could safely say that was birth with moxie. Great story.

Incidentally, I think I would have been freaking out without the midwife there. So calm you seemed!

[Lala]

I LOVED it! I love homebirth stories! When I'm feeling down I read Ina May's book.
Thanks for the telling.

[Ally]

Wow. That was amazing. Thanks for sharing.

[Jamie]

Oh, thank you for writing it down -- what a story!

I have bad pushing envy, though.

Was that your midwife featured in the hb story in yesterday's Times?

[Moxie]

Jamie, yes that was my midwife in the story. The photo showed the other midwife on my team (who was at another birth when I was pushing out El Pequeno).

WannaBe Mom, everyone asked me (including the midwives) if I was afraid, but I was just so thrilled that I was at the pushing stage that fear was not even remotely on my mind. My mother Always Knows What To Do, so I'm never afraid when I'm with her anyway.

Maura, I'm sorry about your SIL. But you never know--things might be easy for her anyway.

Sarah and Cecily, come to the city!

[Lisa c.]

What a great birth story! I absolutely love birth stories, maybe because mine wasn't very interesting. I'm really hoping to have home birth next time. You're a hero to me!

[Maura]

Thanks, Moxie. Actually, they decided at 4:30 today to do a C-Section since labor wasn't progressing at all. She had a 7 lb. 14 oz. boy - and he's absolutely adorable, pink and alert and perfectly content.

Unfortunately, she's had some unexpected bleeding, so they've kept her and my brother in the post-op recovery room and little Sean in the nursery this whole time. Poor little guy all by himself in his incubator with no one allowed to hold him! Ah, well, the important thing is he's healthy and born, right? :-)

[Jo]

Mmm. That was lovely. Thank you so much for sharing it.

[Linda]

That's awesome, Moxie. What a great birth~thanks for sharing!

[Jody]

What a fantastic story! Thanks for sharing.

[Melanie (Phila)]

That has to be the coolest birthstory ever!

[Kris]

Great story, and congratulations Moxie! I'm so glad you had a "really good birth." I bet your also glad that you don't have to listen to the hypno tapes anymore ;) I know I will be....

[Sarah]

Maybe this story will convince my husband to try a homebirth...

Beautiful birthstory. You are so lucky to have a mother that you want to have with you during birth.
Sarah

[Jill]

It was great to read your story. Thanks for sharing, and congratulations.

[cherylc]

This is an amazing story. Very different from my heavily medicalized birth story. My epidaural didn't work though, so I didn't have a lot of pain relief, and I grieved for other women in childbirth in bad situations also. I wonder if that's common? Your story is the first time I've seen a reference to that experience beside my own. It was a profound part of my labor.